Stage Notes is a weekly aggregate post about theater, classical music, dance, comedy and stage news, events, reviews and other pertinent information. In this post, we have an exclusive Q&A with playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays, the queer writer of Where We Stand currently playing at Dallas Theater Center in Bryant Hall.
Stage Notes Calendar
Opening this week:
Circle Theatre: King James, Thursday-March 28, pictured.
The Dallas Opera: National Vocal Competition, 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Winspear.
FWSO Pops: Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga Concert Experience, Friday and Saturday.
Hopeful Theatre Project: Something Rotten!, Friday-March 21 at MainStage 222.
MainStage ILC: Native Gardens, Friday- March 21.
Fever: SAW The Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of SAW, Friday-April 12 at Theatre Three.
Allegro Guitar Society: Bokyun Byun, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Mesquite Symphony Orchestra: Requiem & Valor, 7 p.m. Saturday at Mesquite Arts Center.
Richardson Symphony Orchestra, Stars of the Future, Saturday at the Eisemann.
UT Dallas Choirs: Much Ado About Singing, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Grace Presbyterian Church Plano.
Allegro Guitar Society: Bokyun Byun, 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Kimbell Art Museum.
TITAS/Dance Unbound: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Winspear.
Broadway Dallas:A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, Tuesday-March 22.
The Core Theatre: Charley’s Aunt, Tuesday-April 12.
Onstage now:
Ochre House Theater: Blood Hammer Girl, through Saturday.
Shakespeare Dallas: Pub Crawl, 2 p.m. Saturday at Bishop Exchange.
The Dallas Opera: Don Carlo, 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center: 2026 Banned Books Festival, through Sunday.
Casa Manana: Hairspray, through Sunday.
Undermain Theatre: The Skin of Our Teeth, through Sunday, pictured.
Kitchen Dog Theater: POMPEII!!, through Sunday.
Echo Theatre: You Must Wear a Hat, through March 14 at the Bath House Cultural Center.
Family Music Theatre: Disney’s Frozen, through March 14 at New Vida Center.
Dallas Theater Center: Where We Stand, through March 22 at Bryant Hall.
Theatre Three: Penelope, through March 22.
Upright Theatre Co.: Seussical, through March 22.
Pocket Sandwich Theatre: Arsenic and Old Lace, through March 28.
Stage Notes exclusive: Playwright Donnetta Grays discusses the reflective qualities of Where We Stand and its audiences
Where We Stand is a co-production between Dallas Theater Center and Stage West. The show opened its run in North Texas at the Fort Worth theater in January into February. DTC is now in the middle of its turn and is currently presenting the show at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Theater Campus. The show runs through March 22.
In the immersive theatrical experience presented as a town hall gathering, audiences aren’t just observers, they are participants. A desperate neighbor has made a dangerous bargain. Now the fate of that neighbor rests in the audience’s hands. Each performance gives attendees the option to choose the fate of the character; a choice of mercy or justice.
The show stars Liz Mikel as the lone storyteller and is directed by Akin Babatunde.
“I still remember the exact moment I mentioned Where We Stand to director and mastermind Akin Babatunde,” said Interim Artistic Director Jonathan Norton. “We were in the audience at the Wyly waiting for The Little Mermaid to start. In my mind, Akin and Liz made the perfect duo to bring this beautiful, poetic and deeply moving experience to life. I am so grateful that Dana Schultes at Stage West agreed to take the ride with us. And I can’t wait to share this
offering with DTC audiences. Where We Stand is not a play. It is a communal experience.”
The show is written by by queer playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays who took some time to answer questions about the play and the urgency of theater today.
Dallas Voice: Reading the synopsis of Where We Stand already feels very topical. What were you thinking while writing this, and what inspired it?
Grays: Where We Stand was commissioned by New York’s Public Theater Mobile Shakespeare Unit several years ago. The Mobile Unit takes truncated versions of Shakespeare’s plays and performs them throughout the five boroughs of New York City for communities with limited access to the theater: women’s shelters, community centers, elder centers, and incarcerated communities, among others. I wanted to hold several aspects of the Mobile Unit’s mission inside of Where We Stand; paramount among those were maintaining the rich language these audiences were used to and keeping the performance space “mobile”- lean with minimal to no tech.
The show is helmed by one character but also focuses on one character. What are they representing?
I also wanted to center the audience. So, the “Man” is a reflection of those folks who had limited access or people who we as a community sent to our ‘outskirts’ for one reason or another. Where We Stand is both an observation and a question of “what do we owe each other and how does reformative justice look like?”
Is Mikel’s character more indicative of the audience hence the interaction and the vote for a sentence. Have you found that one choice tends to win out over the other, and what is your response to that?
I will say this: Where We Stand is intended to be a reflection of the community in which this conversation is held.
As a playwright, could you describe how your Black and queer identities intersect in your work, and do they intersect at all in this piece?
Well, I am all that I am all of the time. So, I don’t see one part of myself separate from the other. I never have. I would also include “Southern” and “woman” in that description. And, with that, being in this particular body, I start from that particular POV when I write…anything honestly. It’s a unique place from which to author humanity on the page. One that understands certain things about survival, carving out space, building courage, finding my voice, and navigating systems not built with me in mind. But, in addition to how I identify, I am also extremely curious. So, I want to know how the audience, this community, in their bodies, comes to work I create. The engagement and conversation are also part of the storytelling for me.
As a Black queer Southern woman, is the show’s character that as well?
This play does something intentional, which is that it asks the performer to bring themselves to the center of the piece as their full selves. Although it is not a dictate in its casting, I suppose a question in having written Where We Stand and performing it myself is “why can’t a Black queer woman be thought of as the quintessential ‘everyman?’”
What’s important to you about theater right now?
The most important thing about theater right now is that we remember as artists, culture workers, makers, and institutions that theater is a space for tough conversation. It is still, at its core, the fire around which we gather to discuss the day, the moment, and the issues that most concern us. Sure, we need spaces to escape the burdens of the world, but this space called theater is where we test out solutions to the world’s problems, offer healing, confront our demons, and check in and challenge each other.
In this time where empathy is increasingly becoming a dirty word, I think it’s important, especially now, to be uncomfortable and to see audiences not as ticket holders or consumers, but as neighbors.
Tickets are available here.
–Rich Lopez